Apple brought a lawsuit against a Taiwanese company, Luxpro, for protecting the trade dress of iPod Shuffle in 2005. Taiwan High Court(Taiwan High Court Docket No. 96 -Shantze-185) ruled in January of 2008 that Luxpro’s products named Top Tangent、Ez Tangent were not in violation of Fair Trade Law, but the other product, Super Tangent, was held to be in violation of Fair Trade Law. (Please see the pictures of the products as attached)

In the beginning of the case Shihlin District Court held the mentioned products of Luxpro were all marked with “LUXPRO” , and Top Tangent、Ez Tangent were both made with screen for searching specific files, the feature of the three items is different from that of iPod Shuffle. The District Court ruled all three items were not in violation of Fair Trade Law.

Taiwan High Court upheld the reason of the District Court about TOP Tangent 、EZ Tangent, and held the trade dress of Super Tangent didn’t constitute the likelihood of confusion , and the customers will not mistake Super Tangent as the MP3 player made by Apple, but, Super Tangent did take the advantage from Apple’s efforts and misappropriate the reputation of Apple. Taiwan High Court finally ruled Super Tangent was in violation of Article 24 of Fair Trade Law.
In 2005 Apple also filed an injunction against Luxpro and the District Court issued the temporary injunction to stop Luxpro manufacturing and selling the mentioned three items. In 2006 the High Court reversed the temporary injunction about TOP Tangent and EZ Tangent. In this situation, once Apple loses the case about TOP Tangent and EZ Tangent, Apple should compensate Luxpro the damage for stopping selling TOP Tangent and EZ Tangent in the temporary injunction period. Apple will then definitely appeal against the decision of Taiwan High Court in order not to compensate Luxpro.

It seems Apple was in a hard battle in Taiwan.

J.P. Chang  Attorney at Law